OriginOil's Technology Removes 98% of Hydrocarbons in Fracking Water

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Earlier this month oil man Riggs Eckelberry was not to be found at the Houston Offshore Technology Conference, where oil and gas insiders went to see new technology that will speed oil and natural gas to market. It seemed he was a no-show at the perfect venue to rub elbows and kick the tires, so to speak. Why? He had fracking on his mind, and more precisely, technology that promises to resolve the issue of polluted fracking water.

He was several states away at Los Angeles-based OriginOil, to discuss the new technology. OriginOil is a services company that builds technology to help algae farmers convert algae into renewable crude oil, and he thinks that dewatering algae is the path to cleaner well sites. Why the confident? During OriginOil's time-lapse demo video, in less than an hour the water and biomass separate spontaneously. Unlike conventional systems, no chemicals or heavy machinery are used in this single-step process:

He's just more of a nouveau oilman, and OriginOil is the Baker Hughes or Schlumberger of algae. Eckelberry's process has been found to remove 98% of hydrocarbons from a sample of West Texas oil well fracture flowback water in the first stage alone. He thinks the results point to a potentially valuable application of the company's core water processing technology, and as the domestic natural gas and petroleum industry grows, so does the challenge of disposing of the the large amounts of produced and fracked water.

In the lab, OriginOil researchers have clarified samples of "flowback water from a Texas oil well carrying heavy concentrations of dissolved organics, known as frack flowback," according to a release. Eckelberry said that the company has a process which pulls solids out of solutions. "We've learned to do it so well with algae - it's easy to do with produced water." This test sample was taken from an oil well from which 200,000 gallons of oil-rich water flowed back over a period of two weeks.

The water resources firm PACE Engineering supplied the sample and analyzed the results."The first pass results showed not 70-75% removal of hydrocarbons as is typical of current technology, but 98 per cent. We realized then that this could be a game-changer for the oil and gas industry," Andrew Komor, vice-president for environmental water at PACE Engineering, told GreentechMedia.

Eckelberry added, "Oil well water cleanup is a multi-stage process. We work at the first stage to 'break the emulsion' and quickly remove nearly all of the petroleum without chemicals. We could contribute to the economical re-use of oil well water, a win for the industry and the environment."

Comments

Robert S (not verified)May 14, 2012

This could be a great step forward for traditional and non-traditional fuel production. Though, I don't think it will make fracking cheaper since it will be an added step - but it will make it much better.

harrington.kent (not verified)May 14, 2012

In Texas, at any rate, with agriculture and population growth fighting over shrinking water supplies (made worse by the prolonged drought), big cap oil companies are paying so much money for water in the west Texas Eagle Ford Shale that many farmers are taking the cash. So, as the cost of water goes up, recycling becomes a more cost-effective option. Interestingly, the company that could benefit the most from scarce water supplies is a small startup called GasFrac - which uses a closed-loop gelled propane system instead. No water at all, and well productivity goes up considerably, balancing out the higher upfront costs.